1 ¶
But Job answered and said, 2 How
hast thou helped him that is without power? how savest thou the arm that hath
no strength? 3 How hast thou counselled
him that hath no wisdom? and how hast thou plentifully declared the thing as it
is? 4 To whom hast thou uttered words?
and whose spirit came from thee?
Job is going to
finish his argument in these next few chapters. He first retorts to Bildad with
a rhetorical question asking him how he has helped someone who is powerless.
The implication is that he and his friends haven’t helped at all. They’ve
offered nothing to Job, who has been reduced to nothing, and given him, whom
they insist is bereft of wisdom, no counsel. He casts doubt on the truthfulness
of their arguments against him. Job questions whose spirit came from them, with
the implication that it wasn’t God’s Spirit speaking through them.
When Caleb and
Joshua insisted that the Hebrews could take Canaan if they attacked immediately
God spoke of Caleb having another spirit in them than the spirit that the other
spies, who were fearful, had in them.
Numbers 14:24 But my servant Caleb, because he had another
spirit with him, and hath followed me fully, him will I bring into the land
whereinto he went; and his seed shall possess it.
Paul, in the
context of talking about the possibility of the Corinthian Christians being
deceived by Satan, as Eve had been, says,
2Corinthians 11:4 For if he that cometh preacheth another
Jesus, whom we have not preached, or if ye receive another spirit, which ye
have not received, or another gospel, which ye have not accepted, ye might well
bear with him.
5
¶ Dead things are formed from under the
waters, and the inhabitants thereof. 6
Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering. 7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty
place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing. 8
He bindeth up the waters in his thick clouds; and the cloud is not rent
under them. 9 He holdeth back the face
of his throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon it. 10 He hath compassed the waters with bounds,
until the day and night come to an end. 11
The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof. 12 He divideth the sea with his power, and by
his understanding he smiteth through the proud. 13 By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens;
his hand hath formed the crooked serpent. 14
Lo, these are parts of his ways: but how little a portion is heard of
him? but the thunder of his power who can understand?
Verse 5 of
Chapter 26 is one of the most intriguing verses in the Bible. In the context it
is reasonable to assume that this is a reference to Hell, the holding place,
the jail, if you will, in which the wicked are assigned before their final
incarceration in the horrible prison of the Lake of Fire for eternity.
You are aware
of your suffering in Hell. Your soul, which maintains the shape of your body
and its basic functions, has eyes, hands, a tongue, etc.
Luke 16:23
And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham
afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have
mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water,
and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
To say people
are living in Hell is perhaps to stretch the meaning of the word living. But the vast majority of human
beings who came of age in history, particularly those who rejected God’s
revelation of Himself and His plan for mankind’s redemption, certainly inhabit
it.
Another take on
that verse can be inspired by the reference to dead things being formed under
the waters. For instance, these are things, not human beings, and when they are
formed they are already dead in our sense and understanding of dead. They have
no life. They inhabit this place of reference under the waters.
We have a
limited understanding that there is a large amount of water in space. The
European Space Agency theorizes from their observations that there may be
enough water vapor created in the Orion Nebula to fill the earth’s oceans sixty
times over each day. (31)
Genesis 1:6 ¶ And God said, Let there be a firmament in the
midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the
waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the
firmament: and it was so. 8 And God
called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second
day… 14 ¶ And God said, Let there be
lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let
them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: 15 And let them be for lights in the firmament
of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. 16 And God made two great lights; the greater
light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the
stars also. 17 And God set them in the
firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, 18 And to rule over the day and over the night,
and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good.
19 And the evening and the morning were
the fourth day.
There are some
other things to consider about this. First, we understand from the Bible that
there are three heavens.
2Corinthian 12:2 I knew a man in Christ above fourteen years
ago, (whether in the body, I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot
tell: God knoweth;) such an one caught up to the third heaven.
The heavens
include the first heaven where birds fly and clouds move, the second heaven
would be the firmament of outer space with stars, nebula, and galaxies, and the
third heaven would be the abode of God and the blessed dead.
We also know
that Satan is called the prince of the power of the air in Ephesians 2:2. There
are verses that tell us that the rulers of the spiritual darkness of this
world, not flesh and blood, have their existence above us.
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood,
but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness
of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
So, there is
some great evil in outer space, some network or empire of wickedness that is
physically between us and God. The things that are formed there under the
waters at the far reaches of our universe are dead things and spiritual beings
with which we must contend, even in our ignorance.
We cannot go
through them to God so He came for us and will again.
Nothing is
hidden from God. Not even Hell itself.
Psalm 139:8
If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell,
behold, thou art there.
Verse 7 reveals
that in spite of any belief which may have been held to the contrary the earth
is not on the shoulders of a giant or on the back of a turtle. It hangs in
space without visible supports, another scientific prediction made by the Bible
that has been observed by people in space. The Cern Courier: International Journal of High-Energy Physics
reported of a giant void or empty spot, devoid of galaxies a thousand million
light years across. (32)
Verse 8 brings
to my mind the nebulae or vast interstellar clouds supposedly consisting of
dust and gas such as the Magellanic Clouds and the Orion Nebula. Of course most
would just consider this a reference to storm clouds threatening rain. Still,
the context makes one pause.
The reference
to God’s throne in the heavens in verse 9 implies we are not talking about an
earthly occurrence. Verses 11 and 13 also seem to indicate that the reference
to the sea in 12 is not on this earth. God says that we are like fish in a sea.
Habakkuk 1:14 And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as
the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?
And Christ
calls His apostles, fishers of men.
Mark 1:17
And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to
become fishers of men.
God, by His
spirit, being the lowercase s not being the Holy Spirit but indicating an
attitude or wisdom, has placed the crooked serpent there, in the heavens.
Isaiah 27:1
In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall
punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and
he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.
Revelation 12:9 And the great dragon was cast out, that old
serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was
cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him.
And Job says that
these are just a part of God’s ways. How little we know. Modern man’s viewpoint
that all knowledge can be revealed by science and that anything that science is
unable to reveal, call into being, or experiment on cannot exist is not only
arrogant but foolish in the extreme.
(31) European
Space Agency, “Galactic Water in the Orion Nebula,” ESA Science and Technology,
last modified August 24, 2005, http://sci.esa.int/iso/31372-galactic/.
(32) Marc
Turler, “WMAP's cold spot shows giant
void in space,” Cern Courier:
International Journal of High-Energy Physics,” (September 19, 2007), http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/31185
(accessed November 11, 2014).
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